Beaumont Doc Earns Heart Association Research Grant
Kavitha Chinnaiyan, M.D.,of Beaumont's department of Cardiovascular Medicine, has been awarded a two-year, $84,822 research grant from the American Heart Association to investigate the use of coronary CT angiography, or CCTA.
CCTA is a form of CT imaging used by cardiologists in the diagnosis and management of heart disease. The scan is able to detect blockages in the coronary arteries, the blood vessels around the heart. These blockages are responsible for more than half of all cardiovascular deaths in the United States and are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide.
Although CCTA has been shown to be an accurate noninvasive test for diagnosis of coronary artery disease, limited data exists regarding its proper use and its impact on patient outcomes.
The research supported by the American Heart Association award will examine the use of coronary CT at 41 Michigan centers participating in the Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Consortium, a statewide registry sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield/Blue Care Network of Michigan.
"We hope that this project will help us address critical gaps in our knowledge of coronary CT angiography use and clinical outcomes in patients undergoing this test," said Chinnaiyan, director, Cardiac Imaging Education at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak and Program Director of the ACIC. "With that information, we hope to directly impact policy makers, health insurance payers and health care providers to redefine the most appropriate role of coronary CT angiography."
The objective of the American Heart Association's research program is to encourage investigators to participate in high quality clinical studies that will guide future strategies for reducing cardiovascular disease and stroke, while fostering new research in both clinical and translational science.
Beaumont is a world leader in research of CT imaging as a method of diagnosing or predicting heart attack. Beaumont research on CT angiography has been published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging (2011), the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2005 and 2007), the Journal of American College of Cardiology Imaging (2008) and the New England Journal of Medicine (2000). Beaumont does the highest volume of CT tests in Michigan, with the lowest radiation doses.
More at www.beaumont.edu.
